Taydrcaagan
by The RyRy
Summary: Gippal writes about the Sand Bear Incident, fourteen years later. He thinks about the plight of the Al Bhed, and what or who Death is for him.
1. Taydrcaagan

**Author's Note:** This just came to me. The Gippal from _Another Confessional _was a diarist, and so he kept it up for the rest of his life. Here is an entry from much later on in his life, looking back on the events depicted in _AC_, particularly the "Sand Bear Incident". The timestamp is fashioned after the ones used in _The Confessional _by Ikonopeiston, and the one here indicates that this was written twelve years after Sin, in the ninth month of the year, on the sixteenth day.

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**Taydrcaagan**  
_A Journal Entry  
_A.S.12.9.16

_Taydrcaagan_.

Why do I call you that, in my language, and not the word that you, yourself, would say? _Deathseeker_. _Taydrcaagan_. They have the same number of letters, the same pattern to them, so why is one more powerful to me than the other?

Paine told me, once, that she wanted to use my word for you because it made the threat seem less immediate. It was more foreign, and therefore concerned her less. The thing is that it _didn't _concern her less – why use a foreign word when you have a perfectly good one of your own? Paine loved you, and she still does. Why would she want to cover up your nature with unspecific terms?

Baralai could not even stand to name it, in any language. To name something is a way of establishing dominion over it – what does it say that I must establish my dominance over your concept? What does it say that Baralai will not name it?

It's not as if _Taydrcaagan _is even an Al Bhed concept. Why _caag taydr_ when it can come so easily at the hands of just about any other human being on this world? Why look for it when Sin may be breathing down your neck? I know nothing of seeking death, my friend; I know the feeling of death seeking me.

Not my injury – losing my eye was nothing compared to you losing half of your body. The blowback from the engine that took my eye did not even come close to taking my life. I didn't have to be rebuilt. But do you understand, my friend, even after all these years of knowing me, what it's like to be sought by death?

Spirans – Yevonites – they have their Farplane. They have their afterlife, their religion. The Al Bhed have nothing of the sort. Our religion is not one of gods and old tales, but of gears and oils and the unbreakable logic of interconnecting parts. We know the place of the rod in the mechanical system; similarly, we know our place in the system of Spira. We are here simply for the Yevonites to have someone to hate. They do not hate the Ronso, they do not hate the Guado, only us. Even now, years after the defeat of Sin and Yu Yevon himself, years after the hatred of the Al Bhed was supposedly abolished, they still have that look in their eyes when they look at us.

The Yevonites took our home, they took our livelihood, they banished us from every place we could have called our own. We were exiled to the most dangerous place in Spira – an island, so vulnerable to the workings of Sin – for hundreds of years. So if the Yevonites couldn't kill us with their own hands, at least the monster of their own creation could kill us.

Do you understand, my friend, just what it's like to have death seeking you? You look for her, the lady that we call _Taydr_, but she has something else on her mind. She has always been looking for us – for me.

And now, all these years later, I understand why it is that Shuyin chose you and Baralai and never me. Do you know how that tormented me, knowing that you were chosen and not me, that I couldn't take it onto myself to protect you? I felt like a coward – like I was the weakling of the party that the spirit couldn't be bothered with. Why do you think I fought so hard to get you back? Yes, friendship and all that warm and fuzzy _cred_, but I had to prove that I wasn't weak, and that the spirit was wrong for not choosing _me_.

My friend, my _Taydrcaagan _friend, first Shuyin chose you because of that very trait. He was death, in a way, and you were seeking him. And once he grew strong enough, he chose Baralai because he was open and vulnerable to death. As much as he's been through, Baralai has never sought death nor has he been sought by it.

I was left out because, perhaps simply by virtue of surviving this long without being killed, I am immune to death. I know what you're going to say – I'm foolish to parade about my own immortality. I don't mean that my body can't wither away, that I can't be a victim of a bullet to the heart… there's something else. Death – _Taydr, _your friend – is long in my history. She's been looking over my shoulder since my ill-fated birth, just as she watched my father and mother, and their parents before them, on back through time. She watches us and waits for us. What could Shuyin do to me? After facing _Taydr _my whole life, and for the lives of the generations before me, he was a drop of water in the pond.

Even though _Taydrcaagan _may not be an Al Bhed concept, I've learned that _Taydrcuikrd _is. Unlike those who seek death, I am sought by death. Shuyin is a pale imitation of death – even that bullet wound I received at his hand through yours, though it was the worst of the whole party's, couldn't kill me. _Taydr _has already claimed me, and my whole race.

So, Nooj, you wonder how I can understand you? How can I know? All those years ago -- fourteen of them, exactly -- on the sands of Bikanel after the sand bear incident, how could I look up at you and _know_?

Because my whole life I have been running from the very thing you're running toward. You and I are the same, simply running in different directions.

For you, I can use the word closest to me – _Taydrcaagan_ – to establish my dominion over your identity. I am closest to it, though you may never realize this little fact. For Paine, though she uses the same word, it is foreign to her -- she must put distance between herself and the concept. She has never been sought by death, and she has never gone seeking it either. And Baralai, who can scarcely name the phenomenon, chooses not to deal with it at all. I think – and this is just a hunch – that he will never understand that his race was the hand of death herself.

And I will never, ever tell Baralai that _Taydr _wears his face in my darkest of nightmares.

So when you find her – and I know that someday you will – ask her if she's still looking for me. And when you hear the answer, maybe you'll finally understand how that one-eyed Al Bhed boy could look up at you from the sands of Bikanel and understand your very nature.


	2. Taydrcuikrd

**_Author's Note: _**_This little ditty takes place many years in the future of FFX-2. It also follows along after Ikonopeiston's fic "The Dynast". In order to avoid confusion, probably read "The Dynast" first, as this is a fic of a fic, essentially._

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**Taydrcuikrd**  
_A Result_  
A.S.12.10.5

Gippal decided to tell Nooj on the day that he brought Jarl back from a trip to visit Home. Often, Gippal did this sort of thing for Nooj and Paine's oldest son – the boy loved to travel, and Gippal had a sort of affection for the young man anyway. He was much like his mother, who Gippal had the same sort of affection for. Besides, Jarl called Gippal _Ihlma_, which automatically made Gippal care about him.

Also, Gippal knew, the boy needed a distraction from recent events. A terrible illness, they called it, had infected his mother, causing her to lose Jarl's youngest sister before she was even born. Gippal had heard the story told time and time again – a shadow had infested Nooj's mind, causing him to lose consciousness several times, and then it had also invaded their unborn child, causing her to be a stillborn.

Jarl's parents were still grieving, but Jarl was ready to move on. He was too young to understand, and Gippal knew that. He was happy to do what he could for the boy.

What he wasn't happy with was Nooj.

Gippal watched as Nooj helped Jarl take his belongings upstairs; he assumed that Nooj thought Gippal was leaving after this. Gippal had not said that he would be waiting. He wanted to take Nooj by surprise.

As he waited, he looked around the room and was forced to contemplate. How was he going to tell Nooj? He just wanted to grab his old friend and shake him awake, bring him back to the world, maybe knock his brain back into place. He and Paine had called it a sickness, the thing that invaded Nooj and then the baby girl, but Gippal knew what it was. He knew too well – Nooj had lied to Paine. He had sworn that he had given up seeking death, and now it was rather evident to everyone that he was wrong.

Gippal had thought all along, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there might be another reason. This reason was absurd – Nooj wasn't Al Bhed, and neither was Paine. The sickness that came to unborn Al Bhed children – even the youngest ones, still new to the world – couldn't have hit these Spirans.

Gippal remembered losing a sister to the _reod_, only a few months before Sin claimed his parents, and the descriptions were the same. He hadn't been there for his sister's death, and he hadn't been there for little Polarok's death either, but the imagery of the black shadow attacking her…

…_Taydr_. Death. Nooj had been seeking it all his life, and Gippal had been running from it. They should have compared notes. Gippal hated it that he hadn't come to this conclusion earlier. With age comes wisdom, Gippal had heard, but he hoped he wouldn't lose something else in return for gaining that wisdom.

He remembered the journal entry that he had written – and people wondered what the benefit was to being a diarist! – and the conclusions became even clearer. Nooj had sought death for so long, being _Taydrcaagan_, that Death herself had taken note of him. Now, just as she pursued the Al Bhed, she pursued Nooj.

The hatred of the Spirans had been the hand of death – no, Gippal knew, it was more than that. It gave power to Death, created her form, and sent her after the Al Bhed. Death, once, had looked like Sin, but it came in many other forms too. Baralai had called it a Soul Shadow, and had connected it to Shuyin. Gippal didn't know the mechanics of such things, but he knew what the shadow was like. He knew it from his darkest nightmares as a young man still coping with the loss of his eye, was a dark shadow. He remembered the description of it attacking his baby sister and could only imagine it attacking him…

He shook his head. There was no use in remembering that now. He uncrossed and recrossed his legs, waiting for Nooj to come down the stairs. He had to talk to him.

"Gippal, what are you still doing here?"

The time had come. If Gippal was good at anything, it was talking. "Nooj, I…" He swallowed. "Look, listening to Jarl talk about you and Paine, and the problems you're experiencing… do you want to talk about—"

"It's between Paine and me," Nooj interjected.

"No," Gippal replied, perhaps a bit too petulantly. "It's not. Not anymore. Your family is suffering, because you have no idea how to control what's happening."

"And you probably think you know the answer," Nooj replied, too hastily for Gippal's comfort. The man was on edge.

It took Gippal a fraction of a second longer to reply. "No," he started. "I don't. But I have information for you which might help." To Nooj's inquisitive glance – Gippal knew that he was often relied on for information when none was to be had – he added, "It's called the _reod_. It doesn't translate into Spiran."

"What is it?"

"The _sickness_, as you call it." Gippal focused hard on Nooj's left eye. He could only look into one eye, and he often chose the left. He wondered vaguely what that said about him. "It's not a sickness at all. It's a physical manifestation of hatred."

"Hated?" Nooj turned away, breaking eye contact. "What are you talking about, Gippal?"

"The _reod _hit the Al Bhed," he said simply. "A dark shadow, attacking the helpless. Unborn children. Young kids, barely days into the world. Sometimes, an adult soul so lost in depression that it abandoned life. It was called the _reod_, and it only affected the Al Bhed." He paused, probably for effect. "It's death, Nooj. Death incarnate. And we spend our whole lives running from it, afraid that whenever we turn a corner in our lives, it will be there, waiting."

Nooj just stared at him.

Gippal felt compelled to continue. "Do you understand? I am not a Deathseeker, but I am a Deathsought. _Taydrcuikrd._"

"What does this have to do with… with Polarok?" It was obvious that Nooj was having trouble speaking his unborn daughter's name out loud.

"It has to do with _you_," Gippal replied quickly. "You've spent so much time wrapped up in your own quest for Death, thinking you're in control, that you didn't realize that you've drawn attention to yourself. Now, you are the one being sought."

Nooj was silent after this proclamation. He did what Gippal had seen him do a million times – he crossed the room to the window, and looked outside. Gippal sighed, and waited. It was the best thing to do now.

But Gippal couldn't wait forever. He was an impatient man, and that was part of his virtue, really. Eventually, he gave Nooj the answer that the man was probably going to ask him for eventually. "There is no cure," he said. "But it's caused by hatred. For the Al Bhed, it was the hatred of everybody in the whole world for our race. I've never heard of it attacking any Spirans, but if the hatred is strong enough…"

Nooj was uncomfortably silent. Gippal couldn't stand not having the other man say something – _anything_.

"…you just need to find out who hates you enough to cause _Taydr_ to come for you."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, and as soon as he looked at Nooj again, Gippal knew who it was with that much hatred.

In this case, he thought, it could turn out to be that the hater and the hated were one and the same.


End file.
